


Secret Ingredient

by wackyjacqs



Series: Bizarre Holidays [234]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s08e18 Threads, F/M, Sam and Jack Ship Day 2020 (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25571905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wackyjacqs/pseuds/wackyjacqs
Summary: It’s been hours since the arrangements for her father’s funeral have been finalized and Sam’s been able to go home but she can’t seem to make herself actuallygo home.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Series: Bizarre Holidays [234]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1234973
Comments: 47
Kudos: 137





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ship Day 2020, but also fits the next holiday in the Bizarre Holiday series – ‘Chocolate Pecan Pie Day’ (20 August). A scene filler for ‘Threads’.
> 
> This isn't the initial story I started writing for Ship Day (those previous five attempts have been abandoned for a later time as they weren't working out as well as I wanted), so I went back to my very first draft which is the following story. The initial prompt I chose was "dessert", but a few of the prompts have managed to sneak their way in... hope you enjoy, and Happy Ship Day 2020!

It’s been hours since the arrangements for her father’s funeral were finalized and Sam’s been able to go home but she can’t seem to make herself actually _go home._

She knows it’s because she won’t be able to find rest there; the silence will be too loud and the emptiness will be too lonely, but she doesn’t feel like she can stay on base either because she’s been alone, locked away in her lab for the past hour, and yet she can still feel the weight of everyone’s gaze and their unspoken grief upon her shoulders. It’s almost as if the walls around her _can_ talk and she’s trapped in between, unable to sort out her own emotions because everyone else is expressing theirs.

With a sigh, she leans her elbows on the bench, closes her eyes and rubs at her temples. The headache she’s been sporting for the past two days refuses to go away and the muscles in her back and shoulders are tight and full of knots. She can’t remember the last time she _didn’t_ feel this way: so, _on edge._ She idly thinks it was a time just prior to her four-day stint on the Prometheus last year, but she quickly pushes those memories aside: now is not the time to start dwelling on those.

Instead, she opens her eyes and glances around her lab. The cold, half-empty cup of tea which her father gingerly sipped at the previous day sits on the far side of the bench, while the blanket on the small cot in the corner of the room remains rumpled. Her eyes close again when she realizes nothing has been touched since Colonel Reynolds found her father unconscious in her lab and called for the medical team.

She decides she needs to go home. Everything reminds her of her dad and she feels like she’s slowly suffocating under the levels and levels of concrete of Cheyenne Mountain. She takes a shaky breath and is about to get to her feet when a shadow falls across the floor and she looks up to see General O’Neill standing in the doorway, casually leaning against the frame.

“I thought you were going home.”

His voice is soft and comforting and sends tendrils of warmth through Sam. It makes her feel safe but also makes her want to cry as it fills her with various conflicting emotions and she doesn’t know how to separate any of them. There’s grief and guilt, anger and hope, confusion and helplessness, and suddenly it’s all too much but not enough at the same time and when the General steps further into the lab, Sam’s throat restricts. She no longer trusts her own voice, so she shrugs in response to his statement.

The General doesn’t say anything, but even when Sam averts her gaze, she feels his eyes on her, studying her. She decides to let him scrutinize; partly because she’s simply too tired to put up a fight and pretend that she’s fine, and partly because she knows – selfishly – that this is the most attention he’s given her in months. Her thoughts start to drift but then he’s suddenly in her space and leaning his forearms on the bench and she finds herself looking up to meet his eyes.

“Feel like telling me why you’re still here?”

He doesn’t push her for an answer, just waits until she’s ready, so she decides to go with honesty. “I don’t know.”

She hears him sigh softly but it’s not one of disappointment or frustration. If anything, it’s one of understanding and her eyes fill with tears.

“Do you want me to call Pete?” The General says out of the blue. “He can pick you up if –”

She shakes her head before he can finish his sentence.

“No,” she says quietly, “he’s not – I thought it was best he went back to Denver.”

She resists the urge to add, _“and soon, for good”_ , because she doesn’t want to get into that territory yet either. Not that she thinks it really matters now anyway since the General appears to have moved on with Kerry Johnson. She sighs.

“I see.”

Sam can’t quite decipher the General’s tone of voice so she risks another glance in his direction and finds he is still staring at her.

“Dad was to stay with me,” she finds herself explaining when the silence drags on, “before he –”

She stops abruptly when her voice wavers but she refuses to cry. Not here. She holds her breath as she sees the General mull over a decision and recognizes the moment he makes up his mind. He pushes away from the bench but his eyes never leave hers.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, “I’ll drive.”

Perhaps, more surprisingly for the General than her, Sam doesn’t argue and silently shuts down her computer, grabs her access pass and follows him out of her lab. She feels the ghost of a touch on the small of her back just as they reach the threshold but the sensation doesn’t linger when the General steps into the corridor and keeps a respectable distance between them as he waits for her to lock up.

He doesn’t utter a word as they head to the locker room so she can grab her purse. He doesn’t try to make small talk as they travel up to the surface. He doesn’t crack a lame joke in an attempt to make her smile as they climb into his truck, pass through the security checkpoints and away from the SGC. It’s only once they hit town that he asks her how she’s doing and a short laugh escapes her because she doesn’t know how else to respond without letting him know that she feels lost and a little hopeless. A minute passes before she sighs.

“I don’t know how I feel.” She sighs, then mutters, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah,” he offers quietly, “that, ah, that makes sense.”

The honesty with which he answers makes her smile sadly because he does seem to know exactly how she feels. Without thinking, she turns in her seat and watches him as he navigates the roads to take her home. He only glances at her out of the corner of his eye once but he doesn’t speak. He simply returns his attention back to the road and pretends not to notice her blatant staring. She knows she needs to look away but she can’t bring herself to follow her own order. Instead, she rests her head against the head rest and tries to remember the last time it’s been just the two of them like this. A pang of sadness hits her as she struggles to pinpoint a time, and it’s a stark reminder as to how far they’ve grown apart. And yet, the General still seems to know just what it is she needs, even if she isn’t fully sure herself.

A memory of her mom suddenly appears in Sam’s mind as she recalls one of the final conversations they had before that fateful weekend. Sam had been helping her mom in the kitchen as they prepared for Jacob to walk through the front door, back home and safe, after his latest deployment.

_“Is it hard, waiting for dad to come back home?”_

_“Sometimes.”_

_“Does it get easier?”_

_Her mum smiled at her gently. “Not always – but love is a funny thing, Samantha.”_

_She frowned at her words. “I don’t understand.”_

_“Sometimes,” she paused as she lifted a chocolate pecan pie out of the oven, “the two people who are truly best for each other have to go through greater obstacles to make sure they can be together.”_

The words echo in Sam’s mind. She quickly glances out of the passenger window and bites down on her lip to stop herself from crying. The memory has hit her hard and she now feels the loss of her mom more than she has in a long time.

She wishes for nothing more than to see her one last time; to talk to her and not hold back with her emotions or her life or her work like she did with her father just before he’d died. But, sadly, she can’t, and it’s another item she has to add to her list of regrets. A list that is suddenly two regrets too many for Sam. She swipes angrily at her eyes when she feels the General’s hand on hers and he gives a light squeeze before he returns his own hand to the wheel.

“It’s going to be okay, Sam.”

The use of her first name throws her for a moment and when he brings the truck to a stop at a red light, she looks over at him, only to find herself the subject of his own stare. The words escape her before she can stop them.

“Those things you said yesterday… did you mean them?”

“Yeah,” he answers immediately, “always.”

_Always._

Sam nods, then takes a deep breath as she turns her head and focuses her gaze straight ahead. “Can we go to the grocery store?”

“Sure,” he says easily as he checks his mirrors and when the lights change, he takes a left turn instead of right.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam feels the General’s burning gaze as he follows her wordlessly through the store. She’s not sure if his silence is a good or a bad thing. She likes to think he’s just giving her the space he thinks she needs to organize her thoughts or else he’s trying to size up whether she’s truly lost her mind. Who knows, maybe she has.

She shakes her head at the thought and decides that – if he asks – she’ll simply tell him she doesn’t have a lot of food in the house. It sounds a reasonable excuse to her but when she comes to a stop in the middle of another aisle, grabs a bag of pecan nuts and throws them into the small cart the General is pushing, she risks a look in his direction. His gaze slowly moves from the bag to her and when he quirks a brow, she sighs, already knowing he won’t buy her excuse. A second later, his amusement is replaced with concern and it’s too much for Sam. She looks away and starts to make her way further along the aisle.

“I’m fine,” she says a moment later, but it’s unconvincing, even to her ears.

“Okay. Then answer me this,” the General challenges softly, “I’ve known you for eight years now... and I know for a fact that you hate pecans.”

“I like them in pie.”

“We don’t have a pie.”

“That’s why we’re here,” she answers distractedly as she adds a bar of chocolate to the cart.

“Carter –”

_“I’m fine,”_ she repeats more forcefully as she finally turns and meets his eye. “Or I will be. I just – I need to do this.”

She sees the muscles work in Jack’s jaw as he studies her and decides what it is he should, or wants to, say to her in the middle of the quiet, but albeit very public, grocery store.

“What do you need?”

His question is quiet; sincere, and the words sound a little rough but he’s suddenly looking at her with an openness that she’s been noticing more and more over the past forty-eight hours. Ever since he sat beside her in the observation room and put his arm around her shoulders, and made her realize that there was still, possibly, one last chance for them.

“Sam?”

The use of her name pulls her from her thoughts and she sees the General has moved and is standing just inches away, his concern growing, and it’s only when he gently wraps a hand around her wrist that she notices she’s gripping tightly onto the edge of the cart.

“We need to talk,” she blurts out.

* * *

With a slight detour to pick up a pizza, the drive back to Sam’s house is made in silence. It’s all entirely her fault, yet she’s unable to find the words that she wants to say – or find an adequate way to apologize for the tension that’s been ratcheting up between them ever since she’s said they need to talk.

The General brings the truck to a smooth stop outside her house and before he has the chance to say anything, she jumps out and grabs the bags from the store, leaving him in charge of the pizza. She knows he’ll follow her without question, even if he has questions, and the thought – strangely – makes her smile. She unlocks the door and heads for the kitchen, pushing the bags towards the back of the counter, so she can leave space for dinner.

“Do you want a beer?”

“Am I going to need one?” She turns to find him looking at her intensely. “You’re the one calling the shots here, Sam.”

His words spark a torrent of memories, starting with that one moment four years earlier when they were forced to admit they had feelings for each other, and how she’d been the one to ultimately suggest they leave it in the room. At the time, he’d left the final decision to her. It has always been her decision as to what they would, or wouldn’t, become. The realization makes her decide she needs a beer. She moves to the refrigerator and grabs two bottles. When she hands him one and his fingers brush over hers, she deliberately doesn’t move her hand away until he’s the one to break the contact. She then sets her own drink down and pulls out two plates while the General opens the box and slides a slice of pizza onto each plate.

“Dinner is served,” he says jovially as he joins her at the small table, but she thinks his accompanying grin looks more like a grimace. They eat in silence and while the man sitting to her right keeps his gaze focused on his pizza, she uses the time to steal glances and try to figure out what he’s thinking. Because, somehow, it’s easier than actually having to start the conversation she suggested they have.

She’s not really hungry, but reaches for another slice as the General does at the same time and their hands touch.

“I don’t –”

“You can –”

The shrill ring of a cell phone breaks through the awkwardness and Sam closes her eyes as Jack sets the pizza back down and pulls his phone from his pocket.

“It’s the SGC,” he winces as he glances at the display, “I need to –”

“You can take it in my room if you need.”

He gives her a strange look – something between confusion and bemusement – before he flips open the phone and answers the call in front of her. “O’Neill.”

Sam returns her attention to her food while the General fires off a series of one-word answers. Then, he hesitates and she looks up to see his gaze snap to hers. He points over his shoulder and Sam hears a passing murmur of ‘Agent Johnson’ leave his lips as he heads out of the kitchen. The words bring Sam crashing back to reality and she finds she’s definitely no longer hungry.

She throws the rest of her dinner into the trash, empties most of her beer down the disposal and makes a new space on the counter before she opens one of the cupboards and starts to pull out the few baking trays and utensils she owns. She can still vaguely hear the General talking but she takes a deep breath and tries to forget the last couple of hours have happened. She suddenly feels foolish and embarrassed that her former commanding officer is here, with her, when he could be at his own home, with _her_ , and Sam wonders if the “always” she was promised earlier might no longer matter in the way she thought it would. She’s beginning to think she’s misinterpreted his words and it feels like a slap in the face; that his offer was to always be there for her as a friend, but nothing more. Not anymore.

She sets the tray she’s holding onto the counter with more force than is probably necessary and reaches for the bag of ingredients she bought earlier. The pecans are the first item she lifts out but she just shakes her head and throws it beside the tin.

“Having second thoughts?”

She stiffens at the question, but doesn’t answer. Instead, she starts to lift out the other ingredients. “You don’t have to stay, sir,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to go?”

She falters at the confusion in his voice and forces herself to turn and meet his gaze.

“I just thought you might have more important places to be right now.”

“No, I don’t.”

There’s a finality to his words that she isn’t expecting and she frowns. “Won’t Agent Johnson be wondering where you are?”

It's the General’s turn to frown. “That was Walter on the phone,” he says slowly as he takes a step forward and sets his cell onto the counter, “Teal’c’s overdue for contact.” He pauses. “And Agent Johnson has decided to catch an earlier flight back to Washington.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jack mumbles. His attention remains focused on the counter where he runs a finger along its smooth surface and a wry smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “She, ah – she said I had issues.”

“Issues, sir?”

He shrugs. “There was one in particular, but –” His gaze snaps to Sam’s and she freezes, “you get the idea.”

His admission surprises her because she never, ever expected to being up the issue of Kerry, nor let her openly know that they were no longer dating. But Sam is also aware of what it’s probably cost the man standing before her; both in terms of the relationship and his second chance at happiness. Especially when it’s clear _she_ is the issue behind their split; and especially when she suspects the General is still under the impression that she’s going ahead with her wedding.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he presses his lips together and offers another shrug. “You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

“If you wanted me to go.”

She doesn’t want him to go and now that she knows about Kerry she doesn’t feel as guilty as she probably should about the fact that he’s still here and seemingly in no rush to be anywhere else, but she can’t bring herself to say anything else but, “Stay.”

Sam turns and lifts one of the baking trays to start the pie but when she doesn’t hear the General move, she risks a glance in his direction. He’s still watching her closely.

“Carter,” he says, and she holds her breath, “I know I said that you were calling the shots but – I’m going to need something to work with here.”

She averts her gaze. “I know.”

Deep down, Sam knows she can’t go ahead with her wedding to Pete and she does plan to call off the engagement. She had decided as much before she even knew of the General’s split with Agent Johnson, but now… well, she still doesn’t fully know where the two of them stand but a little flicker of hope refuses to burn out as the word ‘always’ plays in her mind.

“I’m giving Pete back the ring,” she says suddenly and sets the tray down with a thud that fills the kitchen. “I just… I thought you should know.”

It takes a few seconds before he answers. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

For what it’s worth, he does sound genuinely sorry and a part of her is too, but she also knows it’s the right decision and she finds herself admitting those last few words out loud. She meets the General’s eye before she shrugs, “I think I have one issue in particular that I haven’t been able to let go either – and I’m not sure I want to anymore. Let go, that is,” she clarifies when she’s met with silence.

Even though it makes her feel self-conscious, the confession also makes Sam feel immediately lighter and she decides that if nothing is to happen between her and the General – because she’s given him plenty of reasons to move on over the past year or so – that she can still live with that outcome better than an unhappy future with another man. She needs something else to focus on though, rather than Jack continuing to stare at her, and as she pulls the baking tray towards her, something inside of Sam snaps and the floodgates open.

As she rolls out the pastry, she tells him about the final conversation she had with her dad and how he told her that she could still have everything she wanted. As the pastry cooks and she moves onto the filling, she tells him about her parents, her mom in particular, and how she thinks – no, she _knows_ – that her mom would have liked him. As she melts the butter and chocolate in a pan, she tells him of the last time she made a chocolate pecan pie and how it was always something they did to welcome her dad home from his latest deployment, but the last occasion had been just a week before her mom’s accident.

“I could never face making it after that,” she quietly confides. “Until now.”

Throughout her reminiscing, the General sits on one of the kitchen stools, folds his arms and leans them on the counter. He doesn’t fidget; he doesn’t interrupt or crack lame jokes; he simply listens as she talks and focuses on making a pie.

It’s only when it’s been in the oven for a while that he finally moves from his seat and makes his way across the kitchen to help her with the dishes. She puts the last of them away when he turns and leans against the counter edge.

“Why now?” he asks quietly, “What’s changed?”

“Yesterday,” she answers, her voice thick with emotion, “When you said you would always be there for me… I finally felt like I was coming home.”

Silence encompasses the room and from where she stands, she sees the General’s expression soften before he pushes away from the counter. “C’mere,” he says.

Sam follows the gentle order and her hands glide up his arms and over his shoulders while his arms wrap around her lower back and he pulls her close. One hand then moves to the back of her head and she feels his fingers tangle with her hair and she sighs.

The last time he’d held her in a similar way had been over a year ago; when he’d survived a staff blast to the chest. She’d been a mess and spent hours crying over the events of that fateful mission before she had been able to seek him out and confirm for herself that he had made it. She takes a shaky breath and thinks she feels his lips press against her hair and she pulls back to look at him. Her gaze roams over his face while his attention falls to her lips at the same time she looks at his.

“Jack,” she whispers.

He reaches up with one hand and cups her face, his thumb sweeping over her cheek. “Sam, I –”

The ringing of a cell phone shatters the moment, while the timer on the oven also sounds, and Jack curses softly as he grabs the offending item and Sam moves away to switch off the alarm.

“O’Neill,” the General all-but-barks down the phone.

Sam bites back a smile as she takes the pie out of the oven but then she hears his tone change and glances over her shoulder.

“Alright,” Jack sighs, then ends the call. The silence stretches for a few seconds. “They need us back at the base.”

Sam closes her eyes and feels her stomach plummet but before she can say or do anything, Jack reaches out and catches her fingers with his. “Rain check?”

She nods but doesn’t meet his gaze. It’s only when he hooks a finger under her chin that she looks at him.

“I’m pretty sure this is a cliché,” he begins, “but we’re gonna have our pie and eat it too, Sam.”

“Oh, yeah?” she hears herself say, but she can’t hide her amusement at the lame line.

“Yeah,” Jack says as his expression turns serious and he leans in to capture her lips with his in a soft kiss, “always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am leaving this little two-parter here because I’ve looked ahead and the next bizarre holiday is also food-related and fits in quite well with this one. At least, it does in my head.


End file.
